Letters to the editor: 3/17

Demand spending data on home energy tax

We have a heat tax? So if your fuel oil bill or gas bill is $1,000 per month, it now will be $1037.50 per month. If you live in Dutchess County, you will now be forced to pay an extra 3.75 percent for any home energy: fuel oil, propane, natural gas, electricity, firewood, pellets for pellet stoves. This tax is in addition to the federal and state taxes we already pay.

Why? Because Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro and county legislators needed to balance the budget. Educate yourselves, contact our elected officials at: www.Dutchessny.gov. Find out exactly how and what your tax dollars were spent on. Demand to know; it is public information. Take action now. Email this and Facebook it to all of your contacts.

After you turn down your thermostat and put on another sweater or throw another blanket in your child's crib, email everyone you know to spread this message. Email, call and write to your officials. Find out who voted for this and make sure they never get reelected. We are the 99 percent; we are the people and we are outraged! One more thing. I wonder to what temperature the thermostats are set for in our Dutchess County office buildings?

John P. Hafner

Clinton Corners

Don't blame Molinaro for deficit, tax burden

I recently had the pleasure of attending Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro's "State of the County" address at Dutchess Community College. I am among many who feel that this man is genuine and is working hard to help Dutchess County prosper. I'm a true believer when government and the community work together, everybody wins.

I am frustrated with and sympathetic to those individuals who fail to see how strong Molinaro's leadership and intentions for the good of Dutchess County residents continues to be. Mr. Molinaro should never have to apologize for doing what he, his administrators, and Dutchess County legislators had to do with this temporary energy tax.

How else could these representatives have dealt with the deficit inherited from the Steinhaus administration? Should they have raised property taxes? Should they have wreaked havoc in the social services and welfare systems? Or maybe they could have just swept the deficit under the carpet.

There is no easy and happy solution for this inherited deficit. Of course, no one wants to pay another tax and we all know what we want Dutchess County and taxes to be, but that's not what we're dealing with right now.

We simply cannot keep asking the county government for more grants, more welfare assistance - more of this and more of that - and not expect that one day we'd have to "pay the piper."

Dutchess County is in debt. For crying out loud, don't shoot the messenger. We're all in this together.

Joe Eraca

Red Hook

Stop coverup of Seeger's sordid Communist past

In an interview in the Jan. 23, 1994, edition of the Times Herald Record, Pete Seeger made a strikingly frank admission. In response to a query about his 1955 appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Seeger stated, "I considered myself a Communist and I guess I do now." Seeger never repudiated this statement.

Now I ask you this: Would we ever lionize or name a bridge after a self-professed Nazi? I think not. Nazism and communism are both abhorrent genocidal totalitarian political systems. However, the Communist record of mass murder exceeds even that of the Nazis. Since 1917, at least 120 million victims have been slaughtered by the Communists. So why would we make a hero of an individual like Seeger, who supported such an evil and bloodstained ideology?

God bless state Assemblyman Kieran Lalor for being one of the few public officials with the courage to tell the truth about Seeger's odious Communist record. Let Seeger rest in peace, and stop the deception and coverup regarding his sordid past.

Vincent Ferro

Milton

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Letters to the editor: 3/17

We have a heat tax? So if your fuel oil bill or gas bill is $1,000 per month, it now will be $1037.50 per month.